I tend to sometimes dwell in the past so I\'ll take this post as partly directed towards me.

A lot of Saints fans tend to dwell on the past and are eternally pessimistic. The truth of the matter is that we love the Saints as much as anything in the world. We can\'t just turn a blind eye to the past and say \"we\'ll get \'em next year\". That is exactly what the F.O. wants us to do. Continually accept mediocrity and blindly shell out our hard earned money for a substandard product. We \"past dwellers\" refuse to eat the crap that the F.O. tries to feed us, instead we say \"Show us something different than what you showed us in the past\". Quite frankly, the organization hasn\'t given much reason for the Saints faithful to look toward the future.

I think that we \"past dwellers\" will look towards the future when it is obvious that the Saints will commit to excellence, and don\'t just say it in ad campaigns.

But, if someone\'s sole purpose on this board is to dwell on the negatives and point to the past and try to convince folks that we are going to suck, then why follow the Saints and spend so much time on a Saints\' message board?

Why? To keep dude\'s like you in check, for starters. Saying that people are going around trying to convince others that the Saints will suck is kinda stretching it, don\'t you think?
Maybe warning people not to get sucked into that same ol\' offseason hype that happens every year after a disappointing one would be a more appropriate assessment of some of us \"dwellers.\" The Saints have to prove it on the playing field. That is the only way that most of us \"dwellers\" will be able to stop, not when someone else says, \"OK, it\'s time to forget the last 38 years and home in on next year!\" Why not just shorten it and say, \"Wait \'til next year!!\"

But, if someone\'s sole purpose on this board is to dwell on the negatives and point to the past and try to convince folks that we are going to suck, then why follow the Saints and spend so much time on a Saints\' message board?

Why? To keep dude\'s like you in check, for starters. Saying that people are going around trying to convince others that the Saints will suck is kinda stretching it, don\'t you think?
Maybe warning people not to get sucked into that same ol\' offseason hype that happens every year after a disappointing one would be a more appropriate assessment of some of us \"dwellers.\" The Saints have to prove it on the playing field. That is the only way that most of us \"dwellers\" will be able to stop, not when someone else says, \"OK, it\'s time to forget the last 38 years and home in on next year!\" Why not just shorten it and say, \"Wait \'til next year!!\"

No, not any more this year than any other. Realistic perhaps might be a better choice of words. How about you, are you bitter that everyone doesn\'t just fall in line and say, \"Hell yeah, man, this is the year!!\"

No, not any more this year than any other. Realistic perhaps might be a better choice of words. How about you, are you bitter that everyone doesn\'t just fall in line and say, \"Hell yeah, man, this is the year!!\"

Or, we could just concentrate on this off-season and the upcoming year?

But, we can also concentrate on the past 38 years. Makes sense to me ... :casstet:

Or, we could just concentrate on this off-season and the upcoming year?

I\'ve long thought that you worked for the Saints PR Dept.

Billy: Can we just focus on the 2005 season?
WhoDat: Sure, what are the problems with the team?
Billy: LB is a big one.
WhoDat: Why?
Billy: They sucked last year.
WhoDat: But we\'re only looking forward.
Billy: You\'re right!
WhoDat: So what are the problems?
Billy: I dunno. I\'d have to guess. But one thing is sure - none of that old stuff matters! The Saints don\'t officially have any problems right now!
WhoDat: uh-huh.
Billy: They\'re going to be 13-3!!
WhoDat: Doubt it.
Billy: You\'re the most pessimistic person ever.

I think that historical arguments have their place. For example, looking at a guys stats can help you make a very rough prediction about his stats in the coming year. However, that alone will lead to disaster - you need to know a bunch of other facts, like who he\'ll be playing with this year, is he on the same team, any offseason injuries, how old is he... and so on.

Here is a concept that did some work back when I was a broker. We used to look at what was called the 5 year rolling average. This means, you track a stock only over its last five years\' performance, not its lifetime. Sure 5 years is arbitrary, but the idea is this - the entire history of a thing is not likely to be explanatory (i.e. something that happend 20 years ago is going to have very little impact - and, actually, probably no impact - on what is going on now). But I digress. The point: history is something that we can learn from, and sometimes (in the short run) it can help us make good predictions about the future (which will allow us to make adjustments and so on); however, the entire history of a thing is usually irrelevant to the important causal (predictive) story.

It is my view, that without certain facts being the case (things like relevant similarities), historical facts are of only marginal to decent value.

I\'m with Who on this: certain historical facts are pertinent to excellent analysis.
AND
I\'m with Billy on this: some people take the history thing way over-board. The fact that this team has a LONG history of not winning is totally uninteresting to anything. The fact that its recent history is to be .500, now THAT is interesting.

PS - I didn\'t read through all your stuff here guys, sorry. It was just too much. So, if this is off track, just let me know.